Charlie Flindt: Contracting work puts paid to ‘retirement’

On the posh farm shoot where my wife, Hazel, and the flatcoats pick up, there was a lull between drives. Shoot captain Tim sidled over, a worried look on his face.

“How is Charlie now he’s retired?” he asked, firmly stressing “is”. Hazel, slightly taken aback, told him I was fine. “But what is he actually doing?” persevered Tim.

“Ah, I see,” replied Hazel. “I left him this morning playing on his computer, drinking tea and eating Hobnobs.”

“The same as ever, then,” said Tim, and got back to herding the Hambledon hordes into some sort of beating line. Harsh – but fair.

See also: A wild new era begins at Manor Farm

About the author

Charlie Flindt

Charlie Flindt is a National Trust tenant in Hampshire, now farming 40ha of recently “de-arabled” land with his wife Hazel – who still runs a livestock enterprise. He also writes books and plays in a local band.

Read more articles by Charlie Flindt

It’s true that October and November seemed awfully familiar. There has been no great change in lifestyle.

Signing up as a contractor for the National Trust has helped, of course. I spent early October ploughing and cultivating some old fields, and then sowing grass seed.

My mobile is on their system so that when the seed arrived for next spring’s grass seed blitz, guess whose phone rang? I had offered to help, so it wasn’t a problem.

In fact, the flow of lorries is just like pre-retirement days.

Hazel’s precious feed order from a well-known West Country “feed solutions” company for her equally precious cattle arrived unannounced, a day early, and late in the afternoon.

I just happened to be at home, which was lucky; otherwise, the grumpy driver said he’d have unloaded them with his buggy and “left them somewhere” – not wise in the November deluges.

And, just like the past couple of years, I’ve spent November trying to get a book published – “Book Three”. The lawyers seem happy, most typos have been deleted, and we’re now waiting for the printers to get a move on.

I’ve missed the Christmas gift guides, but I’m hopeful of it appearing in the usual shopping channels imminently. Let’s hope the posties have sorted things out by then…

Let’s also hope sales are more successful than my attempts to clear the yard of arable kit. I’ve sold a combine and a toe-tip bucket so far.

It would help if we could agree on what’s to be sold; there’s some weapons-grade prevaricating going on. “But we might need it!” is being applied to almost everything from the Sprinter ST4 to the 8t grain trailers.

It’s true that there’s a very special feeling watching forecasts of endless rain when it matters not. We were very rarely up together in November (once in the past four years), so it makes a nice change to relax.

A quick call to Dan the Bass Player for a slug-pelleting on his acres is almost as satisfying, although the reply can be a bit expletive-heavy; one job I am never going to miss.

I’m walking more – good for the lower half – but my once-chunky shoulders and forearms are definitely going downhill.

You don’t realise how much upper-body work a day’s drilling involves until you don’t do it anymore. All that twisting and turning, fighting with manual spools and energetic steering on the headlands.

It’ll be a good thing when spring comes round and I can get those biceps going again, especially with those just-the-right-weight 20kg bags of grass seed.

You never know, I might shed a few of those Hobnob pounds, too.